David Lindsey
BTech CEng MCIBSE FConsE

Senior Partner

I joined Max Fordham thirty years ago as a graduate and have been a member of the practice's management group for the past twenty years. Over that time the emphasis of my role shifted from designing and managing the engineering of buildings to managing, supporting and encouraging engineers so that they can do detailed design work to the best of their ability.

There is a tremendous amount of knowledge within the practice and forging links between pockets of specialised knowledge; brainstorming & ensuring clear communication between them makes the practice work in a more open and fruitful manner. One of my skills is being able to put people together. Years of experience has enabled me to see the best fits between client and engineer, and specialists. I really enjoy getting the practice to work together as a whole. We have so much experience under our roof and are only just beginning to understand its true value. There is an inevitable change in focus for career engineers from the nuts and bolts of design learnt at the start of their tenure, to the process of designing in its full scope; from the brief to the operational performance of a building.

I move around teams within Max Fordham and support engineers in learning to understand issues and organise their work better. Approaching things in a more structured way and with the benefit of greater experience.I have always recognised and championed the value of the people to the organisation, and my role is now encouraging them to believe in the skills and abilities they've accrued. My focus is the successful delivery of our product to clients. Often its about demonstrating that there is lots of existent knowledge right here, it simply needs filtering and directing to the right places to enable us to provide the very best service.